It is often necessary to install an underground pipe between two given points such as the opposed sides of a finished street or driveway, for example. It is routine procedure to provide an operating trench on one side and a target trench on the opposed side, and a pipe installer device is properly positioned in the operating trench.
A first rod length is manually inserted through drive jaw means, reciprocatively journaled between side walls of a main longitudinal frame of the pipe installer, incorporating the leveling means of the present invention. The first rod length is engaged by the jaws and driven by appropriate cylinder and piston means toward the target trench. A sufficient plurality of rod lengths are coupled respectively to preceding rod lengths and driven forwardly until the leading tip end of the first rod length emerges into the target trench.
An adapter is attached between the tip end and a pipe to be permanently positioned in the formed hole. For this purpose, the direction of movement is reversed to pull the rods with the pipe attached thereto backwardly through the hole, formed by the rod, until the leading tip end of the pipe emerges into the operating trench.
The above described operations are generally conventional, however, it is essential to level the installer and rod relative to the street, driveway or the like prior to initiating movement of the rod in the hole forming operation. In the past, this was done by attempting to level the trench bottom supporting the installer device or by using shims to level the device relative to the trench bottom.
Therefore, it is a principal object of the present invention to provide a jack means at a first end portion of the pipe installer device which is positioned relative to a main longitudinal length thereof and pivot means connecting to a base portion whereby the main longitudinal length carrying the drive jaws and hole forming rod may be angled upwardly or downwardly in a generally vertical plane relative to the base seated in the bottom of an operating trench.